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Thomas E. Woods, senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute and co-author of Who Killed the Constitution? and We Who Dared Say No to War, discusses America’s turn from republic to empire in the late 19th century, the conquest of Hawaii, the bogus propaganda of the War Party then and now, Grover Cleveland’s refusal to steal Cuba, the neoconservatives’ pretended reading of Article II which they say grants the president “plenary” war powers, the leading role of war in setting the precedents which render the constitution irrelevant, the horrible competing doctrines of “the living constitution” and “the president has more authority than God” held by liberals and conservatives, Christian support for the torture state and the Democrats’ complete failure to oppose John McCain and the GOP with any credibility.

Woods is the editor of the Journal of Libertarian Studies and a contributing editor of The American Conservative. For eleven years he served as associate editor of The Latin Mass magazine. A contributor to six encyclopedias, Woods is co-editor of Exploring American History: From Colonial Times to 1877, an 11-volume encyclopedia.

It’s interesting that religious neocons support the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars even though neither conflict fulfills any of the requirements outlined in the Just War Doctrine of Christianity. If Jesus was alive and asked to speak at the Republican National Convention in order to promote his message of peace, then Bush, Cheney, Huckabee, and McCain would order their security goons to drag Jesus out of the arena, physically attack him, nail him to the cross, and leave him to die.